Wednesday, March 21, 2012

When you live on a boat, One of the constants in your life is the dock, and where along it your boat is tied up. You may have some choice initially, and as time goes on you will be presented with opportunities to change your slip. So where along the dock would you like to be?

Tho I have written about this before, our currently nasty weather recently has got me thinking about one aspect of the choice: the inshore end of the dock vs. the offshore end (on G Dock, they're roughly 1000 feet apart). Full disclosure: Eolian is at the far offshore end of G Dock...

Pros for being at the inshore end:

The walk from the car to the boat is short! This is important all year long because you are constantly moving things (groceries, laundry, ...) to and from the boat. But it is especially important in the winter because even the walk from the car to the dock head seems interminable in the wind, blowing rain, and snow.

The inshore end of the dock experiences substantially less wind than the offshore end, which is, after all, umm, offshore.

From the inshore end of the dock, you can relatively easily chat with folks up on the promenade on shore - this is very handy for when visitors arrive!

On G Dock anyway, the inshore end of the dock is a power boat haven - if this is your type of boat, then this is where you probably want to be.

Pros for being at the offshore end

You get to see everybody. When walking down the full length of the dock, you pass by all the boats, and often have a brief "Hi! How's it going?" conversation with a lot of folks. In the summertime, when everyone is outside, anyway.

We have a virtually unobstructed view of the sunsets, and at higher tides, the Sound out at the offshore end of the dock.

Out at the offshore end of the dock, things are a lot quieter - the traffic on the street and the RR tracks are 1000 feet further away.

On G Dock anyway, the offshore end of the dock is a sail boat haven - if this is your type of boat, then this is where you probably want to be.

(In keeping with my objective of keeping this a positive blog, everything above is expressed as a "Pro"... I'll leave it to the pessimists to work out the implied "Cons")